HELP! Root rot victims: keep or cull

[YYCannabis]

I had/have some root rot issues that have been getting treatment for 6 days. Please look at the pics and help me decide if I should keep or cull these girls.

Treatment has been using a product called Enzyme Komplete (I started another post about it last week, but thought I’d start a new one for this topic) since Hydroguard is unavailable in Canada. Two of the three plants are still looking like drowned cats. The third one, as of today, has leaves praying to the light gods again (thank goodness). Roots for all three plants are still brown, but not slimy feeling. (Again...see the pics below).

These girls were just one week into preflower buds with pistils before I started the treatment. In the last 5 days my TDS has shown a drop from 595 to only 510, whereas before I started treatment the drop after 5 days would have been greater.

Keep? Or cull?

Cheers
YYC

[Mr.furley]

I'd say keep, make sure your buckets are light tight and kill the gnats.

[RFheavy]

Definitelt salvageable. Any other information you could provide? Ambient and bucket temps? Rh? Roots turning brown isn't necessarily a bad sign. Whatever roots don't stay submerged in my bucket will tend to get a bit of a brown stain from the nutrients. The roots smelly? Do you have aeration for the roots?
edit: saw the airstone for the bucket in one of the pics. Can't tell if its strong enough for your setup. What do you have mixed with the clay pebbles in the netted pot?

[YYCannabis]

plants: autos popped 9/15
Bucket temps: 17-19C
pH: kept between 5.7-6.5
air: lots n lots of it 😉
smell: they were starting to smell swampy last week, treatment has eliminated smell
nutes: MegaMass Products brand (standard 3 part system)
additives: Remo Magnifical - I started using this just before the girls started showing prebud pistils. I thought they were showing some signs of deficiency, but, in hindsight, was early symptoms of the root rot.
Treatment: Enzyme Komplete - it’s the only stuff the local hydro shop sells. Using it at half strength it foamed up like H2O2 on steroids to the point I was starting to lift the lids off the pails. When the foaming subsided overnight, the next day I found single strand roots had been lifted out of the water and stuck to the bottom side of the lid.

As for the clay pebbles having a dirty top... it’s from treating a bad outbreak of thrips. I used predatory mites to eliminate the bad mites, and the carrier medium is a non organic material that needed to be spread on top of the clay. The lead researcher at the company I bought the mites from assured me that the material is safe for hydro DWC. Also, I don’t top feed, so the material you see is superficial. 😁 It’s been over two weeks of unleashing mighty-mites warfare and I haven’t found a thrip in three days. The next few days will let me know if I’ve won the battle.

[RFheavy]

Adapt and overcome! Hopefully the enzyme komplete was the missing link!

[alltatup]

I have mixed feelings about saying keep em since they're already starting to flower. With the problems you've had, I wonder if you're going to get any kind of strong bud development at all. If it were me, I'd be mighty tempted to let em go and start again.

I'll be interested to hear what others have to say about this. I'm never in a hurry to let a plant go, but I consider how much energy, time and money I'll be putting into the rest of the grow and what are my chances of harvesting good bud: if I'm not gonna get good bud, I'll pull a plant.

[YYCannabis]

That was my thoughts as well. But as a new grower, I need to rely on the experience and wisdom of others who have been through something like this. With that said, I’ll probably let these girls do what their gunna do and hope I can still reap a small reward from them so i can gain my own experience from this.

Once they are done, I’ll be shutting down my tent until the really cold part of winter is over...mid-March or somewhere there about.

[alltatup]

YYCannabis That actually sounds like a good plan, because nothing takes the place of our own growing experiences. I'm watching, and I'll be interested to see what happens. Just give em lots of love and affection and TLC. It's actually amazing sometimes how a runt can turn around and surprise you. And I seriously never underestimate the impact of my attention and concern on the plants' growth. Cannabis loves to be loved by homo sapiens.

[starramus]

I'd say onward, and upward what have you got to lose? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2hJezvd2I

[starramus]

If you can't discover the source of the root rot maybe you should switch to soil next time.

[YYCannabis]

It’s crossed my mind.

[YYCannabis]

Did a full water change and fresh nutes tonight. No added additives or treatments, just nutes. Gave the pails a good peroxide bath.

Taking a good look at the roots tonight, they look and feel much better. No more dark roots (comparative to the color of the rest of the roots).

For what’s above ground...I noticed that the worst looking leaves were mid-stem. Not the bottom branches or even node 2...it was node 3 and 4 that had the nastiest looking fan leaves. Nodes at 5+ were minimally impacted but still showing some signs of unhappiness. I plucked 4-5 of the worst dried-out leaves from each plant. No point having the plant waste energy trying to heal them. If I see some good response from the girls, I’ll try to wait a week then take off the rest of the damaged leaves.

Im hesitant to use the treatment again, but I know that if I quit using it now, there could easily be a reemergence of the root rot. I might cut back to a 1/4 dose just to be safe.

The adventure continues!

Cheers
YYC

[Mr.furley]

Make sure you are throwing your cut leaf in some bleach water or vinegar water to help insure the control of Thrips. Most of the damage from Thrips will start low on the plant and move upwards, some of the damage may be a residual effect from the bugs and/or the treatment as well as the root problem you are having.
Good luck!

[YYCannabis]

Thanks Mr. F for the bleach advice. I did not think of that. 👍 I didn’t think that thrips could cause root issues, but it does make sense that it could lead to root issues.

I checked leaves tonight and couldn’t find any thrips. Plucked some leaves from the 4 bigger plants and only found a couple of my predatory mites (cucumeris) wandering on some leaves. In a few more days I can hopefully call the thrip outbreak done. Once I can no longer find any good mites I know I won the war. 😁👍

[Mr.furley]

Not to sure about Thrips being directly in your water for hydro but they get in your coco and soil.
Down with the Thrips!

[YYCannabis]

The girls are looking better tonight. All three have their leaves back up towards the light, not fully up, but much happier.

I decided to continue treatment. I dosed 2ml to 2.5 gal just to keep things in check. Pulled another leaf from one of them. Remaining damaged leaves don’t look to be getting worse and top growth looks strong.

[Tersky]

Being a hydro grower, root rot is my boogie monster. I ran into issues with it early on in my growing history and have used hydroguard and have not had problems since. Only thing i dont like about hydroguard is it has a 6 month shelf life after being opened and i can never use that much hydroguard in 6 months. Im glad you found an alternative and it seems to be working. I think growing this plant to completion is smart. Even if it doesn't produce the yields you are wanting, the experience from identifying, addressing and correcting an issue gives invaluable experience which as alltatup said, nothing takes the place of growing experience. Good job man!

[YYCannabis]

The little ladies are in mixed conditions of health.

I can’t say that the treatment was the full cause of the collapse of plant health. From what I can now clearly see, the all the plants I treated went through a lockout of phosphorus. One plant I also treated was Runty, which is one of the first 4 plants that are almost 16 wks. Runty has always had a hard life for some reason...right from seed.

Anyways, she was flowering along nicely with plenty of large clusters of pistils. Since the treatment and subsequent phosphorus lockout, all her pistils have browned and shriveled. Not sure what to expect next.



Thoughts?!

Cheers
YYC

[alltatup]

She doesn't look so bad, YY, just skinnier on top, but that looks like a decent bud!!

[YYCannabis]

Little update.

the girls are recovering well from the treatment. Last water change I used another 1/4 dose and had almost no foaming action. This implies that the bad crap has been beaten into submission by the good crap. WIN!



Most of the leaves that were seriously affected have been slowly plucked away. Any leaves left that are still spotted will be left until a big defoliation.

Runty, on the other hand, is still spotted like a kindergarten classroom with chicken pox 🤣



Since her pistils quickly browned a shriveled, and her leaves are weak, I can’t do much to help her out. She’s going to weather the storm until her demise...next week.

And if you’re wondering why I call her Runty, have a look at her sister, Big Sis.



Big Sis was the fastest one out of seed with a taproot that was big enough to make a horse blush 😂. Since Big Sis and two other twins were never affected by root issues and the painful treatment, they have grown very nicely.

Cheers
YYC

[alltatup]

Great to know that not all plants were affected. Gargantua (Runty's sister) looks fabulous!

[YYCannabis]

Farmall I’d love to see a pic of your lights when they are up and running. 👍

[Farmall]

YYCannabis I'm sending you a PM later on

[smoorman]

I'd write something really brilliant but now I've smoked. I'll spare you all.

[YYCannabis]

Not sure about Runty now. Trichomes are starting to show a few amber


She’s looking a little worse for wear due to the root issue and treatment. Red stems are still bright. And freckles everywhere.


Her cola is thin but still has some good crystals although not much on the sugar leaves.





I’m not sure how many more days before I harvest. When should I flush? Suggestions?

Cheers
YYC

[Mr.furley]

The spots on the leaf and slow growth is because you are experiencing a calcium deficiency. At this point you don't need to add this and should just let it ride but you should look at adding a calmag to your nutrient army.
The pictures of the buds are a little blurry for trichomes so I'm going by the bud as a whole, hairs turned in and 80% red. With hydro you only need to run plain water for 72hrs before you cut her down, I'd check back with some pictures in 4 to 5 days for a go ahead to flush.

You say you have been watching and adjusting your PH Daily, Does it keep dropping and you are bring it back up?

[YYCannabis]

The pH has been dropping to around 5.5 every 24 hrs. I bring it back up.

[Mr.furley]

A dropping PH can be a sign of potassium excess. Potassium excess can cause a a calcium, magnesium, zinc and Iron deficiency. Something to ponder for your next round.

[Farmall]

@looks like the root problem set you up for a few deficiencies. The trichomes look ambered up so it’s looking very close 5-7 days seems right

[YYCannabis]

I will be checking back on this in a few days. Oh the excitement of a first harvest 😁

[SoOrbudgal]

YYCannabis is going to be busy real soon LOL

[alltatup]

Lookin awesome, YY! Give those stigmas time to dry out, shrivel, curl in: they turn color, but they get closer to being done when the stigmas have dried and curled.